My name is Behka and I have been happily married to my husband for almost 13 years. Yikes! That sounds like such a long time! I have 7 children, but 2 of my sons passed away as infants to a rare genetic disease. My husband and I are carriers of the disease, so we like to refer to ourselves as ‘genetic mutants.’ So we are raising 5 children ages: 12, 10, 8, 4, and 7 months. And still hoping for more!

I was born and raised LDS, so I was baptized when I was 8 years old. I am from Auburn, WA, just outside of Seattle. Right now I live in Utah. I am in the business of motherhood – and have been for 12 years now. I love it! It’s the only career I have ever wanted. It is so fun watching these sweet children grow up. I promise it does get easier as they get older! In church, I serve as the 2nd counselor in the Stake Young Women’s organization, and it has been by far my favorite calling yet.

I live close to other LDS people, and every Tuesday and Thursday mornings I get together at one of our church buildings with other women and we play basketball. Most of us there have played college ball, so it is very competitive and very fun. We all bring our kids that aren’t school aged yet and they play together while we play. I have also found that as my children get older, whatever they are doing becomes my current hobby – I can’t count the number of basketball, volleyball and soccer games I have watched, cheered at, and coached the past year. I will never get tired of watching my kids play. I also enjoy running, reading, hiking with my husband, and spending time with the family.

I have always known that God is real and that Jesus Christ is His son. I have had many experiences in my life that have strengthened this testimony. The most powerful experience I had was when my second son was dying. I think it is in the most difficult circumstances that Jesus Christ is able to come to us and strengthen us because we realize that we cannot cope on our own, and so He can show Himself to us in an undeniable way. I would like to share a journal entry about this experience. To preface this, we brought our son Josiah home from the hospital on hospice care when he was almost 5 weeks old. They told us he wouldn’t survive the 1-hour car ride home, but I didn’t think it was his time yet. We got to spend 10 extra precious days with him. It was wonderful, but it was still very hard. Here goes:

There is a certain amount of energy required to prepare yourself for the death of your child. It is the most humbling experience to pray to Heavenly Father and tell him it is ok to take back His precious one. You have to give everything you are to Heavenly Father, to align your will with His, because accepting the inevitable death of one so dear is against all natural instincts of a parent. We want to fight it, to do something to make it all better. The times we thought Josiah was going to die and didn’t, proved to be the most exhausting experiences of my life. Partly because of the anguish associated with death, partly because of the spiritual exercise of stripping myself of all pride and selfishness, partly because recognizing if now wasn’t the time, it would be soon enough, and the stress of carrying on in life while death is knocking at the door is excruciating.

The Tuesday night before Josiah died was the worst of all, but was also the turning point in my true acceptance of God’s will. As I lay in bed watching Josiah’s ribs exposed and listening to the crackle of his lungs each time he struggled for a breath, I couldn’t contain my tears. Why does one so innocent and pure need to suffer so? His frail lungs weren’t strong enough to fight off the pneumonia. He wasn’t going to get better this time. I knelt down and from the depths of sorrow and despair I cried to my Heavenly Father. I was painfully aware of my weakness and inadequacy. I didn’t feel equal to the task of watching by as my baby son suffered bitterly, fighting just for breath. I didn’t feel equal to the task of losing him, either. I painfully realized that the only way his suffering would end would be for him to be free from his body. Each realization and admission stripped off the layers of my natural man, one by one, exposing my bare, broken soul. I knelt in a crumpled heap of darkness. In this moment of desperation, I gave everything I could to Heavenly Father. I even gave up my favorite sin of omission and covenanted that it would be a strength from now on, pleading with Heavenly Father that He would comfort Josiah and stop his suffering, knowing what that meant. The despair of death was overwhelming. I closed my prayer. “I lay this burden at Thy feet and pray thy will be done. In life or in death, Thy will be done. I pray for strength to go on, either way.” I climbed back into bed and pulled my son close as sleep overcame my exhausted body.

As it always happens, even after the darkest of nights the sun rises every morning, bringing light and hope of a new day. I sincerely didn’t think Josiah would be with us when I woke up, but he was. Peace and confidence surrounded me. Death still loomed near, but it was no longer a blackness of despair. The stress, strain, and despair were gone. I had given my broken heart to Heavenly Father and the Atonement of Jesus Christ bound it up and gave me strength and courage to go on. ‘I can do this,’, I thought, “I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.” I would care for Josiah until his life’s mission is complete and then I would cope with his death because I had the strength of Christ in me. I had looked death in the eye and no longer feared it; let it come when it may. For the first time since his first surgery, I was able to enjoy Josiah living without fear of him dying. Time is such a sweet and precious gift.

I am so thankful I was prepared for Josiah’s death. Through the process of aligning my will with God’s, my natural self felt peace and my spirit was able to recognize spiritual things. If I was still afraid of his death and holding on to Josiah’s life, I may have missed one of the most cherished experiences of my life as he passed away.

I know that Jesus Christ lives because every time my heart has been broken, through disappointment, despair, sin, or whatever, I have prayed to my Heavenly Father that my heart will be healed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and I have been healed. There is no power of man that can do this. It is only through the power of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I have learned that it is possible to be HAPPY amidst the difficulty of life. Being a Mormon Woman does not mean I enjoy a life of ease and simplicity. But I love my life, with all the adventure and demands of a family, and I am happy!
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~by Chantal

“We think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting – any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples “ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends “you have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another. The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.” –CS Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 85

Choice friends cross our life path at unexpected times and often in ways we don’t recognize at first. Severall years ago, my dear friend-to-be, Cindy, served as the Stake Relief Society President and is a midwife by profession. We had a Stake Relief Society service project in conjunction with the Relief Society broadcast that was no different than many others I’d attended over the years. And yet, this event would end up being a significant experience in the tapestry of my life.

This particular Saturday, we had gathered donations and were assembling birthing kits to go to Mozambique, Africa. Cindy had joined a medical team to give training to traditional birth assistants in rural Mozambique. These kits included a sheet of plastic (for the mother to lie on the ground), a shoe string (to tie off the umbilical cord), a razor blade, and several disinfectant wipes. She then showed a video from her experience there. I cried for the mothers in Mozambique. How is it possible that nearly half of the almost 6 billion people of the world live today in such abject poverty?

A few months later, in my role as Primary President in my ward [local congregation], we were setting up for a Primary activity. I was expecting our 5th child and had to leave early and to go to a doctor’s appointment for a routine monthly checkup — which I felt was a waste of time.

But this checkup turned out not to be routine at all. There was no heartbeat.

Ultrasound confirmed our baby had died inside of me. After a difficult induced delivery, our baby daughter, Ann, was born four days later with a kink in the umbilical cord. We held her, dressed her and buried her in the dust of the earth.

Here I became acquainted with death, grief, and God.

I am always astounded at the depth of pain I felt for a little one I had for such a short time. This heart-searing pain came from the depth of love a mother has for her baby, given only by God. My greatest desire was to hold, love, raise and nurture this beautiful daughter.

Grief was a confusing mystery to me. The anger, the depression, the forgetfulness, the loss of time and motivation all came in waves I did not recognize or understand. Most surprising to me was also the loss of self-esteem and confidence. It doesn’t seem to be mentioned much. But all that I was, all that I knew, all that I believed was crushed into tiny pieces, mixed together and left in a pile of mess at my feet. How do I begin from there?

I won’t go into much detail on the year following except to say that after much fasting, prayer and a priesthood blessing we decided to have one more little baby. Not to replace our little girl, for no one will replace, but we felt to move on. In full confidence and faith we were delighted to learn another little daughter would join our family. Having paid my dues to death and with such astronomical medical odds of such a problem, I moved on in courage, not fear, and hope.

But again at a regular appointment in nearly identical fashion and timing, there was no heartbeat. It had never even remotely crossed my mind that this could happen again. The surprise and shock was more than I could wrap my mind around. There are no words to express the stunned crushing blow that moment held. I literally thought my own heart would stop and I would die of pain on the spot as I collapsed to the floor. It is far more horrific when you know what is ahead and I was hysterical. I learned that death twice is exponentially more painful and difficult.

I fought depression with anger. I was mad. Mad at the world, mad at people, mad that I would have four out of six children to raise here on earth. Logically, I understood everything about the plan of salvation but my heart would not match my logic. The river of emotions came despite my knowledge and faith. It was several years but felt like a lifetime. I felt 90 years old. Then I was numb. I felt nothing. I wondered if as a mother I could ever find joy after such grief or if I would have to die first. I prayed many times my other children would forget and not be too damaged from the difficulty of those years.

Here is where my friendship with Cindy changed my life….

(Please follow this link for Part 2.)

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